


A Hundred Broken Birthdays

by manonlechat



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Doomed Relationship, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manonlechat/pseuds/manonlechat
Summary: Persimmons and fireworks and no easy answers.A collection of Gin/Ran one-shots, vignettes, and drabbles.
Relationships: Ichimaru Gin/Matsumoto Rangiku
Kudos: 16





	1. Eleven Truths About Rangiku & Gin

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite, beautiful, doomed Bleach ship. All chapters are stand-alone and were originally written between 2008-2009 (before Gin’s send off). Enjoy them!

_Eleven Truths About Rangiku & Gin_

Gin Ichimaru knew that he cared, passionately, about six things: dried persimmon, winning, staying alive, playing games, fresh pairs of socks, and Rangiku Matsumoto. But he was never certain in what order.

Rangiku was genuinely shocked the first time she overheard someone at Soul Society express dislike of Gin.

He loved to fondle and tease her. _Cushioning for a sharp, bony man like me_ , he said, with an affectionate tap on her nose. Years later, Rangiku wishes she had told him once he had been attractive.

Gin was uncharacteristically shy when they first began to explore one another. She remembered with pride the day his eyes flew wide when she reached down and touched him _there_.

He never told her where he was going. She wouldn't have liked the answers.

Other men enjoyed spending time with Rangiku Matsumoto because she was utterly gorgeous. The main draw for Gin was that Rangiku Matsumoto was _so much fun_. (Her breasts were also nice.)

It made Gin very, very, angry that Rangiku had challenged him in front of Hitsugaya.

Gin wasn't exactly sure how Aizen planned to escape from Soul Society but he had no doubt a plan was in place. He used the remaining minutes to press into his memory the pressure of her fingers around his wrist.

Rangiku hopes Gin is brought down for the same reasons he would like her to survive.

She was attacked once, when she was a child. Gin interrupted the older boy before he could harm her, turning him out from their shack with a joke and a well-placed kick to the seat of his pants. Two days later Gin disappeared, returning with a grin like a death's head and soaked in blood that wasn't his own.

The first time he said goodbye was the only time she knew he wasn't coming back.


	2. Waiting with You

_I'm here. Waiting with you._

It takes a long time for a person to bleed out.

Orihime is learning the hard way. In movies, death is a neat cut. Wrapped. Finished. End of scene.

As the third hour approaches, still Rangiku holds Gin's hand as he shakes and coughs, and struggles to breathe.

At one point, Orihime can bear it no longer and steps forward to heal; drawn back by a firm grasp and not unsympathetic shaking head.

The tired captains organize the aftermath of the battle, trudging through the mud barking orders, awkwardly avoiding any glances at the intimate drama beside them.

So Orihime waits, close enough to be there if her friend needs her; and far enough not to overhear the low, strained words they sometimes speak.


	3. Gin Ichimaru liked to be liked

_Gin Ichimaru liked to be liked_

Gin Ichimaru liked to be liked.

In all his life, he had only known two people who honestly, genuinely, for reasons he couldn't entirely explain to himself, _liked_ him: Rangiku Matsumoto and his former Third Division lieutenant, Izuru Kira. The rest of Soul Society--allowing for variations of temperament and perception--tolerated him, ignored him, dismissed him, avoided him, feared him, mistrusted him, or despised him.

He didn't _blame_ others for disliking him, though he couldn't forgive them for it (Kuchiki's adopted sister, who barely even hid her feelings, least of all). Unfortunately for most, Gin Ichimaru liked to amuse himself, and people were the most amusing, complicated, and exhilarating toys in the world. Gin enjoyed pain, enjoyed pretty little teasing games, enjoyed the thrill of lifting one hope, the dark rush of crushing out another. Sometimes Gin liked breaking toys.

But deep in his twisty inconstant heart, he still liked to be liked.

Gin had been delighted when Izuru Kira expanded Rangiku's previously exclusive membership in the Club of People Who Genuinely Like Gin, though he suspected the young shinigami had far less an understanding of his character than the former. Rangiku continued liking Gin despite her much better judgement, which consequently made her more incomprehensible and... very difficult to let go. Childhood affections aside, he also had to admit it was ridiculously flattering to be inexplicably liked by the most well-endowed and attractive woman in the Seireitei.

Flattery was close enough to liking to make Gin very susceptible to its effects, especially when he felt the flattery deserved. For a long time, Gin had thought there might have been a third person who liked him. The person who had trained him, encouraged him, and lovingly led him on a dark ascending path. Certainly, he had experienced a nagging suspicion that, along with possibly being liked by Aizen, he was probably being used. Still, Gin unquestioningly, even enthusiastically, followed. He was of Aizen's kind; treachery and backstabbing did not disturb his slumber. Gin had always been an excellent sleeper.

Gin didn't fully understand until he watched Aizen plunge a sword into the lieutenant who worshipped and adored him. _Ah, so that's how it is_ , he thought behind a smile, and avoided treading in her blood. _Better to know where one stands._

And now he stood as right hand to the impending ruler of heaven, second in command to a new God. Guaranteed to live forever. Guaranteed obedience, respect, and terror; all souls, dead and living, subject to his delight and whim. Guaranteed this triumphant, awesome achievement that would likely come at the price of the unhappy and sticky ends of the two people in existence who actually _liked_ him.

And that thought was beginning to keep Gin Ichimaru awake at night.


	4. This Is Just To Say

_This Is Just To Say_

I have eaten  
the persimmons  
that were in  
your desk

and which  
you were probably  
saving  
for lunch after the execution

Forgive me  
they were delicious  
so sticky  
and so sweet

and so scarce in the place  
I am going

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, a Gin/Ran homage to William Carlos Williams


	5. Reflections

_Reflections_

Insights came as swiftly and frequently as the hangovers in the weeks after Gin's betrayal.

_Hadn't she suspected he was up to something?_ The question was posed more than once, with varying degree of delicacy.

They didn't get it. Gin was _always_ up to something. Rangiku had just assumed that there were limits.

Even now, if she hadn't seen the gore in Central 46 with her own eyes, hadn't witnessed the broken emotional wreck Gin left of his own lieutenant, she might still have had trouble believing it.

The boy she had trusted with her first kiss, ticklish under his left knee, who had stolen rice and vegetables for her time after time and gone hungry while she ate, tilting his head to watch her—grinning? The man who planted persimmon trees in the courtyard of the Third Division and—just days earlier—had her clamping her hands over her mouth in mirth and horror as he reenacted Old Man Yamamoto's weekly captains address _using his private parts_ until tears ran down her face?

_What an idiot._

Things started falling into place.

The ducklings she had stopped him from tormenting. Dried blood under his fingernails. The first boy she had dated at the Academy, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in an encounter with Hollows when Gin was in the Fifth Division. The lies. Oh, _the lies_. A century's worth of petty sadism and stories of unnecessary cruelty that began to emerge from the Rukongai and circulate among the lower ranks. Some mornings Rangiku threw up at work, blaming it on the sake whether she had had any the night before or not.

Hitsugaya let it slide.

In the end, which was more frightening? That she was a little bit in love with a psychopath? Or that a psychopath might still be a little bit in love with her?

October turned to brown November.

_One of us is going to die_ , she promised, tipping the jug as daylight faded, cooler and earlier than the day before. _You're going to kill me, Gin, or I'm going to kill you._


	6. Quartet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 2010 Valentine's Day Fic Contest at LJ's bleachness. Theme was "breaking up and making up."

_Quartet_

"Rangiku? It's too bad that… Rangiku?"

But whatever former captain Gin Ichimaru wanted to say, he never finished, and Matsumoto did not answer to her name. Instead, she watched in stony silence as the blood-wet silver head slumped into the lap of his former lieutenant. Kira's shoulders shook as he began to sob openly.

Hinamori twisted her thumbs into her palms. "Rangiku-san..." she began.

Matsumoto turned her head. Eyes empty of emotion, she looked tired and older than she had been a few hours before.

"If there's anything I can do..." Hinamori stammered out. "Anything at all. You just have to ask."

Matsumoto's gaze focused as if she was seeing her for the first time.

"One thing," she said.

*

Victory was not what Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya had imagined.

He had imagined triumph and grim relief on the day of Aizen's defeat. But now that the day had finally come he felt irritable, unsatisfied, even—for reasons he couldn't or wouldn't define—unhappy.

His reverie was broken by the sight of Hinamori striding toward him. Her eyes were steely and her body trembled with the nervous excitement he recognized as signs of her determination. She took a deep breath.

"Hinamori," he said with surprise. "What's th— _mmmph_!"

She grasped his captain's robe, lifted him as high as she could, and smashed her mouth onto his.

" _Mmm_ , Minamori! _Mwha—Momwo, mmmphhhh_..."

 _Aww, screw it_ , he decided as his eyes drifted shut.


	7. Secrets & Lies

_Secrets & Lies_

"Good evening, Captain Aizen! Good evening, Gin!"

Gin blanched.

"Looks like sixth seat officer Matsumoto has had too much to drink," he said smoothly, turning to his captain with a grin. "I'd better make certain she returns to her barracks without getting overly familiar with any nasty hollows."

"Of course," came the placid reply and polite parting nod.

"Ichimaru," Gin hissed at her, seizing her arm as soon as Aizen had turned the corner. He pulled her roughly down a corridor in the opposite direction. "In front of him, only call me Ichimaru."

"Whatever," she shrugged, taking another swig from her jug of sake. "So he discovers we have history together. Afraid you won't get your promotion if Captain Aizen knows your only friend is another former Rukongai urchin?" she teased.

"This is important, Rangiku." His fingers dug into her skin. She was surprised to hear real fear in his voice.

" _Matsumoto_ ," she corrected moodily. "Stop! You're hurting me!"

He instantly let go of her arm.

"Why? Why is it so important? For me? Or for you, Gin?" she demanded.

He stood there blinking.

"For both of us," he finally answered. His face settled into the fox-like smirk she hated, the one where Gin seemed to be enjoying a joke that no one else understood. Rangiku shook her head.

"You are **so** weird sometimes."


End file.
